Murdoch (Rupert that is) extends his Daily Telegraph links

I have previously reported that the Telegraph Media Group (TMG) is outsourcing some production work on its supplements to Australia. It involves the travel, motoring and money pages along with parts of the Sunday Telegraph.

The Sydney Morning Herald explains (hat tip oliverwall) that unedited Telegraph copy will be transmitted from London to Sydney where it will be produced before being retransmitted back to London for publication.

It cites "industry sources" as claiming that the move will enable TMG to "get more expensive staff off its books" and mentions the recent tranche of redundancies and cuts in payments to freelances.

The really fascinating bit comes in the paper's explanation of Pagemasters, which was set up in 1991 by AAP, of which Rupert Murdoch's Australian company, News Ltd, owns 47%, as does Fairfax Media. Its staff of 140 are now subediting about 1,800 pages a week.

The chief executive, Bruce Davidson, is a former News Ltd executive. He says Pagemasters hopes to expand further: "There is no doubt the centralisation of the production of newspapers is on the radar of a lot of publishers not only in Australia, but around the world."

So Murdoch's British company, News International, is now printing the Telegraphs. And his Australian division owns a large stake in the company subbing some of the Telegraphs. Rupert rules.